News

Petrol Panic Buying Hits Barnsley

Thursday March 29 2012

SCORES of locals have been hit by petrol panic buying by motorists who are stockpiling fuel in anticipation of a strike.

Last night, almost 100 people wrote on our Facebook wall sharing their stories at the pumps - many local petrol stations ran out of unleaded and others reported queuing of up to half an hour with motorists filling up their cars and jerry cans.

The Retail Motor Industry Federation claims sales of petrol yesterday were up 45 per cent on a normal Tuesday and sales of diesel up 20 per cent.

The Government is facing criticism after Francis Maude, the Cabinet Secretary, told drivers they should make sure they have enough fuel in their vehicles and "maybe a little bit in their garage as well in a jerry can" after it was reported workers in five of seven companies involved in a row over safety standards have voted to strike.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and AA say the advice should be immediately withdrawn because it could increase fire risk.

Do you have any photos of queues at the pump? Do you know who is limiting sales of petrol or who has run out? Be sure to post on our wall or comment in the box below so we can keep people informed.

the petrol station at Stensham Service Station ran out of diesel yesterday, and Trucks were limited to 200 litres at the BP at the pitstop near junction 5 at the M5. It wouldn't surprise me, if other supplies were going to be in jeopardy soon too. The shops are not going to get deliveries, if trucks can't get the diesel

I work at the Jet on Park Road and yesterday was crazy busy. Most people were filling up £40-50 if not more. We took a ridiculous amount in fuel however we had more people paying on card than usual. There is little need for this panic buying, there hasn't even been an announcement of the strike (which is required a weeks notice) plus it has been said that if tanker drivers go on strike the army will be delivering apparnetly, so there will still be fuel getting to stations.

Endless gossip mongering, wab helps to fuel it. THERE IS NO FUEL STRIKE!!!

I'm going to stop visiting the site as it's becoming a bit of a joke in our house, it's like a Barnsley wide stirring stick. We've heard someones been killed but don't speculate on it on our site, which is a gossip forum???? Maybe don't "report" (copy and paste a public police statement) on your website then and not spam peoples' facebook walls with the minor details either so and so has been named etc.

I got 3 updates in about an hour all on the fact you made a "story" out of a man that got knocked off his motorbike and killed last week. Brilliant when your going on about being sensitive do you consider yourselves? If a member of my family died I don't think I would want it splashed all over so people could put "thoughts with his family" and "He was going too fast". It's just lazy journalism anyway. Why not go out and actually get a story? Then this week it's the lets do a wab report on the non fuel crisis. maybe next week you can do a report on the non bread and milk crisis at supermarkets so people can go out and 25 loaves and 2 gallons of semi skimmed.

We don't force anyone to view or like WAB. We are an information and news resource. We provide information. We do realise that for every person that appreciates that though, there is another who just doesn't get it. And that's totally fine - to each their own.
Regarding the fuel story - if you google it today just about every newspaper in the country has covered the story. Whether the strike has been confirmed or not it is still affecting people's lives.
Joke about WAB all you want - I'm still proud of what I do and, considering we deliver news with a team of just two people and for free too, I don't take the criticism to heart.
You are entitled to your opinion, just as I am to mine when I say that WAB provides a service but in any situation we just can't win.
Some police statements are public - others are not. I wouldn't say it was lazy journalism - I would say it is the way journalism is going. People expect instant answers - and our site does our best to provide that.

Just because the non fuel story is being reported by everyone else do you need to do it as well then?

Maybe if more media organisations were more responsible then we wouldn't have the ridiculous fiasco we are currently faced with.

This whole debacle has been started by an idiot minister, a bungling prime minister and reckless media outlets. Here is what I have found with very little research. 1. There are no fuel strikes planned.2. If there were Unite would have to give at least weeks notice. 3. If the Unite talks break down and they do decide to strike they have confirmed they will not do so over Easter, so we have at least 2 weeks of fuel supply. As for the police statement business are you saying that you release non public statements on your site? Or that you are ringing up the police statement to get information in which case don't you think that police resource could be better used than answering the phones to telephone rubberneckers? Ask yourself this if one of your team's members of family get hit by a bus today and you find out about it. Will you (A) release the information straight onto the site, i.e. the old " there has been reports of an incident in blah blah blah, please don't speculate". (B) not report it at all as you know your work colleague would be gutted. Or (C) Consult them first. If the answer is anything other than (A) then you need to be thinking about how you release your information ethically.I really like We Are Barnsley for it's local good news stories and keeping people up to date the things that are going off around barnsley. It seems these days you seem to be doing more and more just to stir the pot however when you are short on stories.

You raise some interesting points and I thankyou for taking the time to put them down for us. Actually, I have to say, I don't disagree with you. Myself and Judith recently had a meeting earlier this week and both agreed we need to root out some of the more positive stuff as well.
In terms of tying up police time - actually we find that most of the time now the police call us, because they've seen it on the wall and want to stem the rumour. And yes, sometimes we get information that isn't public (not always). Both the police and the council view We Are Barnsley as a useful and interactive way to get information out there - and so send us witness appeals etc pretty frequently.
We are never short on stories - my inbox every day has over 300 emails. But we take your point on board about the 'spread' of content as we absolutely agree with you on that.
As for the final point - about reporting if it was a family member of mine. I can speak with confidence on this as it happened to me. I was a reporter on the Barnsley Chronicle at the time and they ran a story
regarding a family member - I was fine with it, I suppose as a journalist you see it from a different perspective.